Undying
love of Son to his Father:
While approaching the poem entitled “My Papa’s Waltz” by
Theodore Roethke through New Critical reading, persona recollects his childhood
memories which were spent with his father. This is the precise depiction of
undying love of a son towards his father. Now, persona is in his adulthood and
gets into the flashback to recollect all those memories.
Although dictions of Roethke may create the possibility
of literal interpretation including the theme of domestic violence, brutality
of father and other; but poem particularly portrays the playful or cheerful
waltzing between a son and father. Waltz is a type of dance between two people
as partners moving round and round. So, Waltz stands for the several circles of
live between a son and father. A young boy (son) seems to be learning those
steps which give us the clear image of a boy who is learning to live.
Roethke begins his first stanza with rhyming like breathe,
death and dizzy, easy.
The
whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
